around. I had been the one responsible for conducting Caitlyn through our social milieu. When I had first met the girl, she was a frumpy, frizzy-headed no one with a New Jersey accent a mile long. Now she was swanning all over the city with blond extensions, two ex-husbands, and a brand-new face (among other things).
And I was the charity case? How rich.
“You look…refreshed,” I remarked tactfully before taking a bite. “Did you do something new to your hair?”
Caitlyn’s cheeks pinked as she took a seat across from me. “Just a few new highlights. Thanks for noticing.”
“It looks nice,” I said demurely. It did look nice. It also looked exactly like my color, which happened to be perfectly natural. But no, that wasn’t it.
Caitlyn seemed to sense my suspicion as she mischievously tapped her chin. “Not everyone can have the impeccable de Vries jaw line without a little help. Mum’s the word, of course.”
Ah. So it wasn’t her hair, but her chin. Yes, now that I was looking, I could see the change. A bit more pronounced, a sharper angle. She’d always had a weak profile, but now that was mostly hidden by what were probably some injections.
“I asked Caitlyn over to cheer you up,” Calvin said as he shoved a fork into his pasta and took a bite roughly appropriate for a hippopotamus. With his mouth full, he continued. “She’s been—I don’t know—lost, somehow. Maybe you can help her. I can’t take living with such a damn grump all the time.”
He patted my hand with a few flat thumps, and I resisted the urge to jerk it away. I only kept it there because if I didn’t, I’d pay for it later.
“Calvin, dear, really. Can you blame her? Your arrest wasn’t exactly easy. And people have been viciously unkind to her since Eric’s wedding, you know.”
I stared at my pasta. They had been unkind, in part, because of her.
Calvin rolled his eyes. “How has any of that affected her? I’m a damn pariah with the great de Vries family these days, through no fucking fault of my own. First, I get totally jilted with the old lady’s will…”
I opened my mouth to point out that hardly any people who had married into the family had inherited anyway, but quickly realized I was wrong. Jane had, of course, and she had literally married Eric on the same day Celeste died. And then, of course, there was his mother.
It was the men, then, whom Celeste ignored unless they were literally born into the family. My father, who hadn’t been a part of the family in years anyway. And my husband, who had forced his way in.
“And then I’m the one who was carted away like an animal, thanks to that sniveling DA.” Calvin took his phone out of his inner jacket pocket and pulled up a picture. “Can you believe he had the guts to call a press conference last week? Look at that guy. What a greasy rat.”
He displayed his screen around the table. I resisted the urge to rip it away and gawk at the picture of Matthew standing in front of a number of microphones in front of his Jay Street office building. He looked like a character from one of his favorite Hitchcock movies, full of panache and savoir faire, his natural charisma practically jumping off the small screen. My chest ached.
He was beautiful. Intelligent. Perfect.
Not as perfect as you, doll.
Oh, God. It really did hurt.
“That’s the prosecutor?” Caitlyn guffawed. “Goodness! I’ve seen him before! At the opera this spring. Nina, wasn’t he with you, or did you forget?”
I looked up sharply. I hadn’t forgotten that night at the opera with Matthew. So sweet, salacious too…until we had bumped into Caitlyn and Kyle, and it had been obvious that she and Matthew had had their own extramarital affair at one point. It was before I really knew him, but I hadn’t been pleased.
I was much less pleased that she was bringing it up now.
“He was nosing into the family before, believe it or not,” Calvin said, oblivious to the sudden tension. “Even guilted Nina, so Eric forced her to take him, if you can believe that. Slimy little worm was digging into us even then, wasn’t he, princess?”
My face felt wooden, though visions of that night flashed behind the mask. The way he looked in his tuxedo, a red rose pinned to the lapel. The look on his face when he’d seen the red Valentino dress that